Finns det några stygga barn?
by SuperiorDimwit
Summary: "Are there any naughty children here?" It's Christmas! Which means presents, food, family and cosiness! Or does it...? Not when your author likes morbid twists. (Based around folk tales and historical characters, set in Blue Exorcist-verse.) God jul!


**A/N:** Can we all pretend that I posted this on Christmas? That was the plan: then Fox sidetracked me the day before Christmas. ≥w≥' Oh well: better late than never, right? Merry Yuletide, everyone!

(Oh, and **Viciousxkobain**? This turned into something completely different from what we talked about. x'D So don't be surprised when you read.)

* * *

It was that season again. The season that huddled before the hearth and swathed itself in the aromas of freshly made sweet bread and oven baked meat. It was the time of year when candles winked at passers-by from every window, providing a sense of distant warmth to those who trudged through the snow, while indoors they cast glittering reflections in the Christmas tree baubles. It was a time of wonders, of family, food, and laughter.

It used to be.

Lorenz's eyes gazed vacantly at the small kitchen. It used to be the time of year when Karen and August would help their mother make gingerbread men. They would sit around that table, flour all over themselves. It was something they did every year, a tradition as comfortably recurring as Mass on Christmas Eve. August ate the dough, he always did. Anna would tell him not to, and he would make a couple more gingerbread men, but he snuck morsels into his mouth anyway as soon as she wasn't looking. Then he would complain of stomach aches for the rest of the evening.

Used to be. Used to. There are no crueller words than that. Lorenz hated them – had hated them for some time, at least. Now, as he looked at the empty table with the silent candle flames, he wasn't sure what they made him feel. Not hate. Or maybe it was hate, just a faded kind. A bitter kind.

Anna had made the gingerbread herself this year. Karen had not wanted to, had shaken her little head when she asked and fixed her eyes on the floor. No. No gingerbread men this year.

Yes, bitter. Bitter and helpless: that was how it felt to watch your daughter go from child to shadow.

"Lorenz." He started out of his thoughts. "We're ready."

Anna had Karen's hand clasped in hers. She had dressed them both in their best coats, with knitted mittens and sturdy winter shoes, and long scarves that covered both neck and chin. There was that look in her eyes that always seemed to know what was on his mind no matter where his thoughts wandered to. She knew where he had been just now – maybe because it showed on his face, maybe because her own thoughts had gone to the same place.

The latter, most likely.

"Better get going then, shall we?" he heard himself say chipperly. "Won't hurt to be early. Never know who we might run into on the way." The Baumbachs, for example. God bless their neighbours, they were good people, but Christ could they talk if you let them.

The cold ran claws across their faces as they trod their way down the street. The bells echoed in the winter dark, heavy bronze bells reminding each and all that tonight was Christmas Eve, and Mass would soon be due. A steady pilgrimage of villagers trickled towards the sound, each scarf-bundled face familiar. There were the Vogls, who ran the bakery; the Frankenbergers, who both taught at the elementary school; Axel and Paul Künzi, brothers that worked as handymen for whatever service you might need. All nodded their heads in greeting, but no words were exchanged. Only Renata Frankenberger sent a gentle smile, before she hurried along after her husband. She had taught both Anna and August.

Lorenz grasped his wife's free hand and pressed it. She glanced at him briefly, grateful, gentle, and squeezed his hand in return. The village folk could believe whatever they wanted. The two of them knew, and they would never forget.

The little Manz family branched off the pilgrimage early, heading instead to the small graveyard two blocks from the church. There were no streetlamps to light their way there. The path was familiar, however, and many others had left lanterns lit by the resting places of their relatives, so finding the grave was no difficult task. The snow crunched under their feet. Wet snow, perfect for shaping, perfect for making snowmen – come tomorrow it would be frozen and useless, most likely.

"Honey…?"

Anna stopped, glancing down at Karen. She stood quiet, staring down at the snow between her feet where she had stopped.

"Don't you want to come? Say hello to big brother?" Her voice was soft, like flower petals; quivered at the edges, like flower petals.

The little head shook despondently.

"Karen, are you sure you won't come?" he tried, and though his voice didn't quiver, his heart did. "Please, honey. Big brother would want you to. He's lonely, and-"

"Lorenz", Anna murmured, a cloud of breath shrouding her face and her warning gaze.

Perhaps it's the gaze, more than anything, that pushes him over the edge.

"Would you rather have me hushing about it then?! She knows what happened! We all know what happened and pretending it didn't is only-"

"Stop! Just… stop." She held her gloved palm out against him, pearly grey in the dark. "I'm not having this discussion again. She needs time to heal – _you_ agreed she needs time to heal. You can't fix her, Lorenz – just, please- No matter how much you want to or feel that you need to in order to forgive yourself, you can't-"

"I'm sick of your psychologising, Anna! This is about our daughter: our _sick, traumatised daughter_ , and whatever I want or feel has nothing to do with that! It's not about _fixing_ her, it's about supporting her fixing herself!" He jabbed his gloved finger repeatedly in Karen's direction. "If her own parents don't show it's okay to talk about it then how the hell is she ever gonna be able to talk about it?!"

"Not by making her feel guilty for not wanting to visit her brother's grave! If she can't take it she can't! End of discussion!" She swept a horizontal line with her arm, physically cutting the talk right there.

"It's not about that! It's not about going to a grave or not! It's about approaching what's happened, dealing with what's happened! That's where we need to be there and help her!"

"That's what _you_ need!" she retorted, this time with venom in her voice. "Always have to poke your nose in other people's lives and fix things for them! You can't just leave things alone, no, you have to _fix_ them!"

The argument would have continued if not for Karen running off. Crying, most likely. Lorenz followed her, only to be stopped by his wife's strong grip.

"Light the lantern. I'll wait outside with Karen."

She didn't wait for him to agree, just let him go with a quick pat on his shoulder. A "good job" pat. Bloody good job indeed.

Lorenz sat down on his haunches before the grave, tugging off his gloves to coax up the pin that held the lantern door shut. The cold metal stung his fingers, but the pin didn't budge. He rattled it violently and made all the snow on top fall down and trickle into his coat sleeve. Frozen stuck, of course. Of course. Fucking thing wouldn't open, of course not. Why would there be something he did _not_ screw up when his entire existence was one big screw up – he might as well smash the fucking thing right away, that would get the door open!

Lorenz let go of the pin. The lantern tilted sideways, losing grip from his violent treatment, but remained shut. Not knowing what to do with his hands, he clenched them – tightly. Like the knot wishing to explode in his chest. It didn't help. He brought them up to his face, pressed them into his cheeks and felt the snow melt and trickle down his arm.

Bloody good job. Christmas Eve and all.

"I just don't know what to do. I don't… know what to do." He murmured the words over and over, feeling the rage in his chest slowly abate with each repetition. His hands slipped from his face like a burden he could no longer bear to carry, and he clasped them together. Fixing his eyes on the base of the headstone, he spoke again: "I want… to help. That's all I want. I just don't know how." He let his breath out: a long, weary sigh of silver mist. "I don't know how to put us back together again."

He didn't trust his voice to say anything more than that. All that could be said had been said long ago and changed what? Nothing. Every morning hope mocked him with illusions that maybe August would be back, sleeping in his bed like always: that he had just run away from home. Lorenz would lie there, straining his ears to pick up the sound of small feet that were due any minute, navigating to the kitchen for breakfast. Sometimes he thought he actually heard it and sat up in bed, staring out the bedroom door. He would sit like that until Anna laid a hand on his arm, until he could no longer delude himself. August would never come back. Their life would never go back to what it used to be.

Used to be.

" _I just want to make it right._ " He screwed his eyes shut, pressed his clasped hands to his forehead. " _Please. I just want to help my family._ "

He couldn't sit there all night, he reminded himself. They would be late for Mass, and only cretins came skulking in in the midst of a sermon. He shot the unlightable lantern a reproachful glare. The least he could do was straighten it up again, so he…

Lorenz stared. He had barely even set the lantern upright before the door creaked open. Had his violent treatment loosened the pin after all…? He rummaged through his pocket for the matches, fingers quickly losing motor control in the cold. But in a moment the lantern was lit, and the warm light illuminated the name in polished surface of the headstone.

"Merry Christmas, little guy", he whispered, smiling, after which he kissed the tips of his fingers and touched them to the stone before he left.

* * *

He waved at Anna and Karen, the former checking her wristwatch and the latter staring wordlessly at her own feet. What little better he had felt after speaking to himself before August's grave was soon outweighed by the atmosphere. It was just as before, the tight, prickly helplessness still simmered under the surface.

He should apologise for earlier. He apologised every time, and it held less and less value each time he did. It was hard to convince her he was sincere, and who could blame her? They kept ending up in the same situations over and over again, until apologies angered just as much as thoughtless words.

Not finding the proper thing to say, he walked by their side in silence. Inside, it kept pulsing. The anger. The bitterness – the helplessness. His mind swam between impulse and reason. Deep down he didn't want to argue with her. He just wanted to… _do_ something.

Exorcism removed problems. It dealt with _tangible_ problems, problems that had tangible, hands-on solutions. Not crap like this. Not this vague, invisible goddamn _rot_ that had eaten into their lives. How do you fight that? He didn't know, and that had his thoughts churning and churning as he stalked through the snow, steaming ahead of his wife and daughter.

That's when…

…everything…

…stopped…

No. No it couldn't be. They killed it. They killed that fucking hellbeast one year ago. Him and Reiner and that Upper Middle Class exorcist from Bern shot that fucking thing dead and cut its head off. They saw it dissolve in miasma. _They saw it_.

Yet… There were tracks in the snow. Wet snow, perfect for shaping. Tracks, perfectly cast in white. Perfectly perfectly perfectly impossible and _there_.

One… One foot. Human, but _big_.

One hoof. Cloven. Goat hoof. Too big for a goat. Too big for anything not standing two metres high with a face like a skinned deer head and a long barbed tongue and- and- and…

 _Breathe._

Breathe. The air burnt his lungs, stabbed like cold steel. He needed that. He was trained to handle this, just had to remember that training. Remember what to do. Secure civilians. Gather back up. Track the demon: exterminate it.

"Anna, I need you and Karen to go to the church. Stay in there when Mass is over, I'll come pick you up later. Whatever you do don't go out, and warn anybody with children to do the same. It's not safe."

Anna nodded. She had married an exorcist knowing what exorcists did, and though they had been arguing a lot this past year she never questioned Lorenz when it came to his work.

"Lord protect you", she said before she hurried off towards the church, gripping Karen's hand tightly and throwing glances left and right in search of danger.

"You too."

Lorenz felt as if he were two persons, that ten-minute walk back to their house and the next ten minutes it took him to don all equipment. The Upper Second Class Exorcist Lorenz, who fastened his ballistic vest and readied his rifle with automated ease, without really thinking: and the Disoriented Father Lorenz, who was swept off his feet by a tidal wave of… Thoughts. Fragmented, but thoughts. Contradicting thoughts.

Krampus couldn't be back. But it was.

One year's worth of nightmares grabbed hold of him, squeezing the ribcage around his lungs. He fastened his eyes on the rifle and began naming its parts, one by one. Steadily. Systematically.

Krampus was back. That didn't mean last year's tragedies would repeat.

Hopefully.

When Lorenz felt calm again he jumped into the car, fastening his belt with one hand while scrolling through the phone book with the other. Turning the key. Clicking the number. Driving.

Most people wouldn't bring their phones to Mass, let alone have them on. Exorcists weren't most people.

"Reiner Gehrig", answered the familiar, nasal voice after a few seconds.

"It's me, Lorenz."

"Hi there! And Merry Christmas – though that's not why you're calling, is it?"

"Afraid we have some work to do if we want that merry Christmas." The car jostled when he drove over the snow rim onto the church parking lot. "Get your things. Code orange."

"On it. What's the situation?"

"Fresh tracks in my village. Saw 'em when me and the girls were going to church. Appears to be a single one. Appear- Appears to be Krampus."

There was a silence over the phone. Lorenz swung open the car door and slammed it shut with more force than needed.

"I know we killed it, I know, but-"

"Have you seen the demon, Lorenz? Actual visual confirmation?"

"No, but I know those tracks. There's no mistake about it. Those are his tracks."

He didn't know if he was as certain as he sounded. There was a small voice worming in the back of his head that suggested he could be mistaken, that it could just be neighbourhood children making fake footprints in the snow: that he was just seeing a reflection of his fears.

The voice sounded very much like Reiner.

"Just… Stay put, okay?" his friend said over the phone. "I'll come over and check it out – four eyes see more than two."

Lorenz pulsed ahead to where he had seen the tracks, all the while hearing Reiner's words in the back of his mind. Stay put. His colleague would check if there were tracks or if he were imagining things. Wasn't that what Reiner had said? Not those exact words, but wasn't that what he meant? That he was letting his personal problems spook him in his professional role. That the tragedy of last year had made him unreliable – as an exorcist and as a father.

"If it is Krampus you're gonna need back up anyway, so just stay in place till I get there", Reiner said calmly, unaware of what Lorenz was thinking. "It shouldn't take more than twenty minutes if I push the speed limit a bit."

Twenty minutes? Lorenz took the phone from his ear for a second to glance at the clock. Twenty minutes was too long. Krampus followed a rigidly set schedule, that was how they'd been able to intercept it last year. In twenty minutes he would have vanished. Reiner knew that. So he did think he was imagining things.

As if he would imagine those tracks. They were under his son's window. _They were under his son's window_.

"Yeah, I'll be here", he said, careful to sound relaxed. "It's on the street by the church, the one you take if you're going to the cemetery. Know the one?"

"I lived there for fifteen years, I know the place better than you do", Reiner chuckled. "Meet you in twenty."

Lorenz clicked the phone off and lowered it, until his arm hung limply at his side. Staring into the night, he heard Reiner's words float around in his skull – until he heard something else. Quietly, softly, the first psalms rang out in the night. Muffled by the thick stonewalls of the church, they still filled the darkness with light, made the lonesome streetlamp seem brighter and warmer. Lorenz's eyes fluttered closed, lost to the song that rose and fell, swirling to heaven high like the mist of his breathing. Did the angels hear them…? Could they hear the humans that sang of hopes for salvation? Did they care? When humans were broken and hurting, did they care?

Maybe… they did…?

Lorenz's eyes opened. He had asked for guidance, had he not? And the lantern had opened, and he had found these tracks. It was a circle closing, wasn't it? A door opening. The events of last year repeating, same events that had plunged them into this. Maybe… this time…

Lorenz turned on his heel. He pocketed his phone, and with every stride towards the car the plan crystallised clearer in his mind. Twenty minutes was too long. It would have to be now. Now or never.

* * *

He didn't bother looking at the speed meter when he cut corners on the serpentine mountain road: he was well over the speed limit. The snow came down heavy now, so thick the floodlights on the old Volkswagen only illuminated a compact white wall before him. Like a silver screen. The events of last year came back to him in flashes, replaying like cinema. They had taken this road, him and Reiner and that other guy – Kasimir. Reiner had taken the car keys after he and Kasimir had declared Lorenz was too rattled to drive. They had tried talking to him during the drive, keep him in the present and keep him focused. Truth was he couldn't remember anything they had said. The only thing on his mind had been August.

"Shit…!"

Lorenz's shoulder collided heavily with the car door. One breathless moment he sat completely still, gripping the wheel tightly and waiting to see if the car would tilt further. It didn't seem like it would.

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck…!"

The car didn't budge. He tried driving forwards, he tried driving reverse, he tried alternating in the hopes of rocking the car loose – nothing worked.

He fumbled with the clasp and threw off his belt, opening the door. He was almost there, almost there! In the flurry he had missed a turn and driven off the road, into a pile of snow that saw his car stuck and tilting at an acute angle. If he hadn't been on even ground he would have been dead.

Lorenz peered through the snow, peered at the dark slopes and the vague, glimmering point of light in the distance. Maybe…

Not wasting another second, Lorenz threw open the trunk. He was close – hopefully close enough. Krampus passed over the Pasterze glacier before the demon vanished among the steep cliffs of Grossglockner. Always the same route. Chasing him on the glacier in this weather was suicide but if he could intercept Krampus before it descended the glacier valley, like they did last time…

He was the two persons again. As he stumbled through the snow, weighed down by the duffel bag he carried, he was exorcist and father, professional and lost. He had a plan, but what would it amount to? Would it amount to anything? He couldn't allow himself to think that August might be alive somewhere. Children taken by Krampus never came back. Revenge, that was the only thing he could hope for. Revenge and protecting others.

The easiest route down to Pasterze is the stairs that descend the slope from the viewing platform. It's closed in winter, and the parking lot and tourist facilities are empty, but the lights are on.

Lorenz took a careful detour around the building: walk straight to the stairs and he would alert Krampus with his footprints. Making his way to the other side of the building, he set his equipment down on a spot where he wouldn't be seen. There was a powdery white parking lot between him and the sheer drop down to the glacier, with a concrete banister securing the edge. Yes. That would do.

Five minutes. He had five minutes before Krampus would arrive.

Lorenz wasted no time selecting two mines from the duffel bag and shoved them into his coat pockets. He traced his footsteps back again, until he made a sharp turn and headed for the point where the banister began encircling the parking lot.

The banister was an unprotected surface, and much of the snow had either blown off or fallen from its own weight. Lorenz gave it some extra help: straddling the foot wide banister, he alternately brushed snow off and scooted ahead. Bit by bit, he approached the stairs down to the glacier without disturbing the snow on the ground. Even if he worked as fast as he could, it was slow going. The clothes glued to his soaked skin under the coat. Sweat beaded on his face only to freeze it over, transforming his features to a stiff mask.

Three minutes. Lorenz started praying quietly to himself, fumbling for the explosives. He had reached the stairs, finally. His hands trembled when he activated the gripping mechanisms on the devices. On one side of the gate, he stuck the kerosene mine: on the other he put the actual explosive mine.

Two minutes. Two minutes to get back, two minutes until Krampus came.

Lorenz turned to look over his shoulder, back the way he had come. Moving backwards was slower. He swung his leg over the banister so that he was sitting looking out over the white abyss that was the Pasterze valley. Then the wind hit. His heart leapt into his throat as he felt it push him over the edge. He jerked back forcefully – too forcefully – and almost tumbled backwards onto the ground. He would have, if he hadn't caught hold of the edge of the banister last minute. Lorenz hung there for a moment, panting, wide-eyed, and aware just how close to disaster that had been. Exhaling a relieved cloud, he hauled himself up carefully and completed his turning on the banister, then scooted his way back as fast as his trembling limbs allowed.

He sprinted back to the duffel bag, grabbing the detonator. Different devices responded to different frequencies: 3 was for explosives, 6 was for kerosene. 6 for kerosene. 3 for explosives. That order, yes. Lorenz settled in, back against the wall, detonator in hand, and belt stocked with grenades. And waited.

Waiting was the worst. It gave him time to remember. To hope.

Three children disappeared last year. Two the year before that. They had never been able to find so much as a finger; he would be a fool to think this time would be any different.

But it already was different, wasn't it? Krampus had returned – which was impossible, but he had. Then couldn't its victims return, too…? Even if that was impossible?

Truth was nobody knew what happened to the missing children. Folk legends would tell you they were drowned or eaten, or sent to Hell, but folk legends have had hundreds of years to be contaminated with all manner of fantasies. Fantasies…

Lorenz shook his head firmly, hoping to clear his thoughts of doubt. His imagination had had a very active year, but he _had_ seen those tracks. He had seen them _twice_. He had been given a sign, there at the grave, and God favours those who place their faith in Him.

Many times he tensed, thinking he had heard muffled sounds through the snowfall. Nothing. Thoughts began crawling in his head: what if Krampus _had_ changed its route this year? What if it had seen the car and was looking for him? Many of those thoughts – fantasies from a haunted mind. For the longest time, the only thing that startled him was the sound of his own rushing heart, and then… distantly… the metallic tink of chains being dragged across the snow.

" _This is it. This is it. This is it oh god this is…._ " Lorenz choked on the air in his lungs. Finger trembling on the detonator, he slowly peeked around the corner.

There was nothing but darkness outside the lonely island of lamplight. It could be anywhere. It could have seen the car and be looking for him. It could-

The first sign he got was a cloud of warm breath, released into the air by a throaty huff just outside the range of the light. Fear flooded him, drowned him from within. It was just like a year ago. The day when everything fell apart. As long, bent horns rose out of the cloud, he sent a quivering prayer to the skies.

Krampus' skinless head melted out of the darkness like a nightmare come alive. The long tongue lolled down on the furry chest, glistening in the light… Lorenz clenched his jaws around a pathetic whimper. The demon's eyes had no lids. He knew that already, but seeing that wild stare again made him want to turn around and run until his legs gave out. A hideous grin cut through its face, rows of teeth on permanent display in the naked flesh. It carried a wicker basket on its back, that godforsaken basket it had put August in that godforsaken day…

Three more steps, three more – two more, one, _one_ …

Lorenz pressed 6 on the detonator and soaked the demon in kerosene; he pressed 3, and the blast roared against the mountain walls as it took Krampus' hoofed leg with it.

The demon's thick fur had protected it against the effects of holy water last year. With this type of mine, the effect was the opposite. Kerosene would soak into the hairs and stay there even if the flame was put out.

A hideous shriek echoed against the mountainsides as it thrashed in the snow, trying to rid itself of the bright blue flames.

When Lorenz rushed into the open area, rifle at the ready… He was there. He was _there_ , all of him at once, exorcist and father, father and exorcist, one and unstoppable. He was there and he was propelled forward by a singular uniting purpose, a force so pure and powerful he could only think of one word for it: Fate.

He fired two silver jacket rounds into Krampus' abdomen before the beast had a chance to rise.

He could feel it. Fate. It was Fate that he had arrived here unharmed, Fate that Krampus came back, Fate that let him see the tracks just after he prayed for something he could do for his family. This moment. This was God's will.

Lorenz stared the monster down, right into the naked eyeballs, and spoke as if he were the Lord himself and his word the Law:

"Last year I killed you. I will do it again if you don't give me my son back."

Krampus stared up at him where he lay. Residual flames still ate its fur and flesh, creating a stench around the creature that made Lorenz's stomach turn. The leg stump gushed black blood over the snow as it healed, but the demon didn't seem to care. Its head angled eerily sideways, staring at him with one big, lidless eye. Snowflakes landed on the horizontal pupil, melted – washed a glossy trail of mock tears down the naked muscle fibres.

"SON?!" The voice boomed out of its snout so suddenly that Lorenz flinched. It was a clear voice: too clear, _sharp_. Sharp like clapper striking bell inside his head. "A son without father is dirt sleeping under the feet of the waking. You have no son. He has no father." A wicked light glinted in the demon's eye. "You are empty."

Lorenz dodged just in time: the whip snarled through the air where he had been seconds ago.

If Lorenz had not known his enemy from before, it would have been a pitifully brief battle. Krampus was best fought from a range. It was fast, but that's what Lorenz had brought all those grenades for: Krampus was only fast so long as it had two legs to stand on.

The third or fourth time a grenade tore into its target and relit the kerosene residues, Krampus was notably worn out. It took a few moments before it heaved itself up again, and even then it didn't attack: it adopted a stance to defend.

"I'm asking you again, demon." Lorenz kept his rifle to his shoulder and his aim on Krampus' chest. "Give me back my s-"

It was by a hairsbreadth he managed to avoid the whip this time, and Krampus snarled with anger.

"Ha! You can't touch me: the Lord is with me tonight!"

What happened then proved it to him. A tremor pulled through Krampus' body, and the attack he expected didn't come.

"In the name of the Lord", he quickly repeated, "I command you to give me my son!"

Lorenz barely even breathed. Could it really be…? But the demon relaxed its stance; it didn't raise its weapon, it didn't attack. He had- The Lord had subdued it.

" _Thank you! Holy Father, thank you!_ "

Krampus eyed him quietly. It swayed on its only leg, light reflecting in tar black patches in the fur. There was no mimicry to interpret on the raw deer skull, but the way it inclined its head and just _watched_ seemed… like it was thinking? Weighing its chances?

"Men who wish to burn will burn, and that fruit will find no tree nor ask for one", the sharp voice declared. "Very well. If you can find what you seek, you may have it."

Lorenz almost pulled the trigger, so tense was he. But Krampus did not attack, no: it merely shifted to take the singed wicker basket from its back and set it down on the snow. It was large enough to hold a man, and large enough to hold three children if you shoved them together. Was that where August had…? Was that where Krampus meant he should go?

Wary, without taking eyes or rifle sight off Krampus, Lorenz approached the basket. In his mind he repeated prayer after prayer, like a talisman: protection from the Lord or not, he was well aware that these were things few humans survived. Krampus might be luring him into Hell for all he knew. One quick glance into the basket only seemed to confirm his suspicions.

There was no bottom, only an empty black pit.

"Where will that take me?" Lorenz wet his lips and focused on keeping the rifle steady. He would only get one chance if Krampus decided to make a move at this distance.

"Hell. Or Heaven: whichever you seek. The mind can make a heaven of hell, and a hell of heaven."

Never trust a demon. Never trust anyone who doesn't give a straight answer to a straight question. Lorenz cast one more glance into the pit and gripped the rifle tighter. Heaven or Hell, that didn't matter – not really. The only thing that really mattered…

"In the name of God, tell me the truth: will it take me to my son?"

The long, pointed tongue twitched, but Krampus did answer:

"It will."

Lorenz glanced into the pit again. He had failed August, had failed his son, in this very place last year. Not again. Never again.

Lorenz swung himself over the rim and into the darkness.

* * *

Light – that was the first thing he became aware of. And cold – a sluggish cold that clung to him, as if he had just woken up and left the warm covers of his bed.

So many smells! The air was thick with them – turpentine, paint, and varnish; rubber, glue, the warm smell of sawdust; something burnt, as of welding.

An infernal clattering and clanging and hissing, too. Some of it sounded like machines, and some sounded like noise made from the plainest handheld tools, like screwdrivers and hammers.

Lorenz heaved himself to sitting position, blinking and trying to get his bearings. The sounds and smells all came together in a giant panorama of a storage. The shelves stretched upwards infinitely, for there was no ceiling – not that he could see. A thick fog hovered where the ceiling should be. It was the best word he could find, at least, for it didn't behave like fog. It moved like swarms of mosquitoes on summer evenings, churning and milling, and there were shadows – large shadows – moving inside it.

" _So many people…_ " Lorenz got to his feet, marvelling.

If the storage shelves stretched infinitely upwards, the hallway extended farther still. Like a cathedral made into a house of mirrors, the archways went on and on in both directions. Two rows of workbenches occupied the floor, with space for people to walk between and along the walls.

There were more people than Lorenz had ever seen. More people than at a soccer stadium, more people than at the Oktoberfest or the biggest Christmas markets. If they weren't busying themselves at the workbenches they were carrying materials to others – men, women, boys, girls, elderly. Every age was represented, and one manner of dress more peculiar than the other. Women in threadbare nightgowns, elderly men in much too small pyjamas with toy car patterns: some that walked around unperturbed in nothing but underwear. Some that didn't wear anything at all, which had Lorenz promptly look away. There was a corridor to his side, too. It was empty: a highway for suppliers carrying material to the work stations.

"Excuse me?"

But the man he addressed walked past him as if he didn't exist, too busy getting his box of circuit boards to its destination.  
 _  
_"Excuse me, could I just ask where we are?"

He addressed a little brown-skinned girl who couldn't have been older than ten, but she ignored him, too. It was as if he didn't exist. He waved his hand in front of her face and received no reaction. He shook her shoulder – she stopped her work. But as soon as he stopped shaking her and began to speak, she resumed her task.

"Hello? I really need to know where I am. Can you at least answer me?"

Lorenz bent forward until he was literally in her face, seeking eye contact… There were no eyes to seek contact with. There were two white orbs with no trace of pupil or even blood vessels. Glossy and blank, it looked like she had glass baubles in her skull.

Appalled, he fell back a step. Just what…? What was this place? Who were all these people? What were they…?

He stared at the girl – no, rather, he stared at what she was doing. She sat at her workbench, using a crafting knife to stencil out patterns drawn on a square of velvet fabric. Next to her, a greying old man took the cutouts – a meadow landscape with flowers and butterflies – and glued them onto hard paper. Lorenz recognised those: Karen used to love to colour in those empty fields.

Used to.

Lorenz staggered as if struck by sudden vertigo. Used to. Yes, used to. Karen, his daughter, used to do that. His wife was Anna. He had a son.

"August?!" he called out. No answer. He couldn't expect one, could he? "August?!"

He began striding down the path between the rows of workbenches, head flicking from side to side in search of a head of black curls and a brown gingerbread man pyjamas.

"August?" No, wrong child: August didn't have freckles. "August?! Aug- Sorry!"

He had stumbled over a boy perhaps five years old. The box he had been carrying spilled its contents – brightly coloured squirt guns – all over the floor. Even then, the boy didn't seem to notice him: without even a word, he squatted down and began gathering up the toys.

Lorenz stood still, mutely watching. Mutely feeling the horror working its way up from his gut. It clambered up his throat, slowly choking the life out of him, as his gaze drifted between the five-year-old boy and the old, wrinkled and almost bald man stuffing plush animals at the bench next to him. He could feel it build inside, could feel the breath of the abyss that yawned at his feet.

When he went over the edge, he could have sworn the floor fell out from under his feet.

"AUGUST!"

Lorenz shouted at the top of his lungs, every remaining illusion of calm gone. He had to find him. His son would not spend the rest of his life in this place.

"AUGUST!"

He jogged. He ran. Wild-eyed, his head swivelled between glass bauble faces and tangled mops of hair until the faces blurred together and he barely knew what he was looking at. There was no end. He ran and ran – stopped when there was no more air to run on, but the hallway never ended. The workbenches never ended.

"God please just a sign, please, just one little – give me a direction, tell me if I'm closer or farther away, tell me, I just need to find my son, please…"

His eyes didn't stop swivelling even when he stopped to catch his breath. They danced left right, left right, up the shelves and down again, touched the shadows swimming in the fog and down again, spinning in his head and spinning the world under his feet: never stopping, never ending.

"Au- August…"

Maybe he was in the wrong place? Maybe he should have gone the other way? Perhaps August wasn't working but running supplies?

Lorenz wiped his forehead on his sleeve. Couldn't hurt to try, right? If it doesn't work one way, try another. Next side corridor that came he walked down it… walked down… walked…

Stopped.

From the side corridor another hallway branched off. Parallel to the one he had been running in: identical to the one he had been running in for the past hour. Beyond the next row of towering shelves he glimpsed another parallel hallway, beyond that another, and another…

His face crumpled first. Then his body. Then his heart. Whatever was left inside of him poured out on the wooden floor in sobs and unarticulated wails.

It's a delicate thing, the sound of a soul crumbling.

* * *

The workshop was a breathing entity around him: sounds faded in and out, like breaths or tidal waves. He didn't know how long. He clutched his sides and rocked, rocked and rocked. Hands and fingers tingled, and he felt cold. He didn't know when they had clenched into fists but they had. They had cocooned themselves in his coat and wouldn't open.

Naked feet filed past. He felt them, the vibrations from the floor speaking to his forehead. Saw the flowing lines of year rings in the floorboards: side by side and never touching.

"August…"

A rusty whisper, crying to an ear that wouldn't hear it.

"What has befallen you, my friend?"

Lorenz blinked. Searching for the origin of the voice, he noted a pair of feet that had stopped beside him. A man. An older man with a friendly-looking-

Lorenz blinked again. An older man, olive-skinned, with a big white beard and a pair of friendly brown eyes filled with concern.

"You… I…" Lorenz felt like he had just been woken from deep sleep, perhaps with a fair amount of alcohol ingested the day before. The old man didn't rush him – he knelt down beside him and laid his hand over Lorenz's cramping fist. The hand was pleasantly warm and chased away the sensation of cold as if it had never been there. "I'm looking for my son. I'm… Lorenz."

"Lorenz." He smiled, and Lorenz felt like he was a child receiving praise from his father. "Can you stand?"

"I, uh… I don't know."

"Let's try, then."

With the stranger's help, he did get on his feet. He shivered all over, but he did stand on his own.

"Thank you, sir…?"

"Nikolaus", he filled in with another smile.

Lorenz believed him. He hadn't, at first. Nobody his age believed in Sankt Nikolaus. This man, however: this man he could believe. The woven kaftan and loose riding trousers he draped himself in, the kindness of his voice and the hope his smile gave: this Nikolaus he could believe.

A Christmas saint, for a Christmas miracle.

"Like I said, I came here looking for my son, but the place is huge. I don't even know where this is, only that my son is in here somewhere." Lorenz unclenched his fingers slowly and with much effort, working them as much as he could to regain mobility.

Nikolaus' face grew sad, but just like his smile the emotion wasn't limited to that: the sadness seemed to extend from the bottom of his heart and into the air around him.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"So am I. But he's in here somewhere, so if we just look long enough we'll find him", he said, and even felt himself muster up a smile.

Nikolaus smiled back, but it was a sad smile. A pitying smile.

"Your son is wicked – that's what saddens me. Return to your family, Lorenz. This is not a place for you."

"What?" Lorenz frowned. He stopped working his fingers, directing his full attention at Nikolaus. "I'm not leaving here without my son. You don't need to help me – I'll find him myself." And with that, he turned to go back to the first hallway.

It didn't matter how long it took. He would walk each of those hallways end to end and he would bring August back home.

"You won't."

Lorenz halted. A frown line formed between his eyebrows as his gaze darted from side to side, as if looking for the explanation. Before long, he glanced back at Nikolaus over his shoulder.

"What do you mean by that?"

"You won't leave here with your son." Regret laced the old man's voice, regret that went straight through bone and marrow. "This is where he belongs. This is where the wicked are brought, so that they may serve the good."

A chilling sensation travelled down Lorenz's spine then: a coy thing, skipping slowly from vertebra to vertebra and whispering velvet threats in his ear.

Lorenz pretended to take a step in order to turn around fully, and used the motion to slip the handgun out of the holster in the back of his utility belt. Careful to keep it hidden behind his thigh, he approached Nikolaus slowly.

"What… are you saying…?" he murmured, narrowing his eyes at the bearded saint.

"The wicked _always_ oppress and usurp the good", he spoke, clenching his hands before him with an expression of pain and frustration on his features. "I wanted to help them – I laid down my life to help them. But how do you help without means? How do you provide for the poor without money? How do you make the wicked pay for their offenses?" He looked Lorenz straight in the eye, and there was a passion in the brown eyes that made him want to listen to the man's words. "This." Nikolaus unclenched his hands and brought them outward, gesturing to the gigantic workshop complex around them. The smile was back on his face – a beatific smile, a joy so overwhelming it brought tears to the old saint's eyes. "Here the wicked may pay for their sins and serve the good, and bring happiness to a world where otherwise they would have brought grief. Here, my mission can be fulfilled."

In one fluid motion, Lorenz had the gun pointed at Nikolaus' face and the hammer cocked back with a sharp click.

"Saints like you belong in Hell", he snarled through clenched teeth.

Lorenz fired. He was a good shot. The bullet would have found its target, too, if not for the arm that suddenly thrust out and took the hit. It was an arm covered in grey fur, and a clawed hand that clutched a coiled whip.

His eyes widened, and all colour drained from his face.

"How… You are…"

He hadn't seen Krampus coming, because Krampus wasn't there – yet. The demon's upper body was there, rising out of Nikolaus' shadow as if it were a hole in the floor. His head reached Nikolaus to the chest, and more and more of him emerged by the second.

" _No... not out of his shadow…_ " Lorenz fired his remaining rounds into Krampus in quick succession while backing away from the two of them, bringing another ammo clip out of his belt to reload. " _He_ _ **is**_ _his shadow_."

"You would slay those who wish to help the innocents?" Nikolaus' face was pain and betrayal, but it was also rage. He said one last thing, before he was obscured by the horned skull of his pet demon: "Then you are wicked."

Krampus unravelled his whip in a single expert motion.

Of course he had never been successfully exterminated. As long as Nikolaus remained, the demon spawned by his obsessions would take shape again.

"In the name of the Lord, I command you to stop! Do not- UAGGH!"

Krampus was fast when he had two legs to stand on. In one sweep he sent Lorenz crashing into the workers lined up on their benches, with four deep gashes in the ballistic vest. He coughed, getting up from the floor and groaning at the pain shooting through his ribs, but more importantly:

" _Why didn't it work?!_ "

The beast approached him at leisure, clomping heavily over the floorboards with its one cloven hoof.

"Our Lord God commands you-"

"God?" The demon snorted, its long tongue whipping about in merriment. "God is backwards writing on the tongues of eyeless souls. You are blind, Lorenz." The heavy whip hissed circles on the floor, like the tail of a cat spotting prey. "A blind man devouring himself and wondering why he starves."

Lorenz backed along the hallway, trying desperately to reload and keep an eye on Krampus' movements at the same time.

"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be gone! Be still! S-stop…!" He backed into a worker carrying a box of toy car chassis, stumbled, twisted around, and _ran_.

Ran down straight hallways. Ran between infinite workbenches, storage shelves, and humming machines. Ran as fast and far as he could. If he could circle the shelves and get back to Nikolaus, he could take him down. He could end this once and for all: if only Krampus didn't end him first.

His fingers went to the grenades still in his belt. He could… No. His hand went back to frantically pumping back and forth as he ran. There was no possibility of detonating anything in there without killing workers.

Without killing kidnapped children.

Why didn't the commands work? Nikolaus, was it Nikolaus? Did he do something? Was this a place where God held no mandate?

Or… was it something much simpler than that?

Never trust demons. They lie. Their greatest talent, however, is making humans believe in that lie. Whether that is to make a hell out of heaven, a heaven out of hell, or salvation out of despair; there are many lies humans wish to believe.

* * *

There is a place that isn't, where the ceiling reaches the stars and the walls as far as the eye can see. It is a place of many sounds and smells, where joy can be shelved and wonders welded, where no sorrow can exist and no memories be made.

At one workbench sits a man in a long, black coat with double rows of silver buttons. On his chest sits a badge shaped like a shield, blue and red with a cross in the middle. He cuts little rubber tyres out of a sheet and mounts them on little toy car wheels.

Next to him sits a boy in gingerbread man pyjamas, with a mop of black curls on his head. He takes the little toy car wheels and fastens them on little wheel axles, which he then fits onto the chassis.

* * *

 **A/N**

 **Krampus,** as some of you might know, is the evil companion of Santa Claus/Saint Nicholas in Austria and Germany. Legend has it he either beats naughty kids with birch sticks or whips, or kidnaps them to drown them/eat them/ship them off to Hell. But why would Nick want a companion like that…? I mean there must be some reason they're in cahoots with each other, right…?

 **"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven"** is a line out of Milton's _Paradise Lost_. It's the one that precedes the more famous quote "better to reign in hell than serve in heaven" but I personally think this line is the more interesting one…

 **I thought I would write something funny or fluffy for Christmas** , as that is the customary thing to do. But as the time drew closer, I realised that wasn't going to happen, so I wrote this instead. Very depressing for a Christmas story. Perhaps it's for the best that I wasn't able to finish it on time?

 **God jul och gott nytt år!**


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